"Perhaps the more erudite members of the forum will know where the OED got all that from? I thought that the current shape of the piece came from a representation of a military howdah; I don't know where I got that idea from - maybe because I grew up near to the Elephant and Castle in South London."

The OED's research is generally pretty good. I thought the rook was supposed to look like a howdah as well.

As for, "anatalogically", is someone suggesting Karpov knows everything? He might, I suppose...

Since the first edition of the OED (edited by Sir James Murray, father of chess historian Harold Murray), began in the 1880s and was completed in 1928, and had 10 volumes, while the edition currently in preparation is the 3rd, I think we can assume you are thinking of some other dictionary entirely, or else you have a total disregard for facts?

I do not consider myself to have a disregard for facts. I have seen and read many chess books and listened to other chess players. Sometimes a more elementary discussion is required. Isn't the point of the forum to discuss chess? Who will be deciding who is wrong and who is right? What is false and what is true?

"These four walls are closing in. Look at the mess you put me in." Lyric from a Rainbow song taken from an 18th century poem.

That is interesting - particularly the "vazir" for queen, because it has been argued I believe that originally the queen was really a "vizier", i.e. king's assistant, then as the game arrived in Europe, somebody used "queen" as they thought queens go with kings. So maybe the confusion goes back even further? Or maybe it was always meant to be a queen, and the vazir/vizier similarity confused people later!

It was more that in Europe, we call it a "queen" in most languages, although it originally seemed to be a "vizier". In Europe, we associate kings with queens, whereas maybe in your part of the world, the "vizier" had a bigger role. Kings and queens in UK have (or had) people who give advice, but probably most of the public have no idea who those people are. It is probably a committee anyway.